Free yourself! My second birthday

On April 2nd I celebrate the anniversary of my letting go; it is like a second, inner birthday.

I am someone who has a complicated story, others have experienced and gone through much worse, but this is not about comparisons, it is about what I have done for myself so that I can be happy.

The first picture is my personal message to myself, which I have to keep in mind every single day. I am aware that it is in MY hands whether I have a good or a bad day, and that external factors have little influence on it. The saying "you must have got up on the wrong side of the bed" has so much truth in it!

I can't deny my mood swings, my depressive moods and my depression, but I can get up every day with gratitude because I'm breathing, because I always have a good reason to laugh. I sometimes have to help myself a little with my meditation, but one of the reasons I get up and carry on are the people who are standing by me today, who have walked the path with me to get here. People who have sometimes wondered about me, sometimes shook their heads when I was unbearable. When I told them everything, it was the people who suddenly said, "Now I understand." These people, whose names I don't want to mention here, mean a lot to me! Thank you for your help!

I have always fought for recognition, for the love of people who, for various reasons and moods, didn't really have much to do with me. The past didn't make things any better in my case; from a certain point on I was just a guest among the people from whom I wanted more understanding and recognition. That didn't work, it just wasn't feasible, this realization led to an eating disorder in me, to a desire for distance, which in turn led to the very people who didn't see me when I was around suddenly wanting to communicate with me every day, maybe even wanting to control me. I was even coerced and put under pressure not to change that, even people who it didn't concern were involved.

It stayed in a similar pattern until April 2, 2020. I knew I had to get out of there, but letting go and letting go is always easier said than done. The amuse bouche was that I had been given the Lola principle for letting go as a tip from a workplace back in 1998, but never implemented it. Someone observed and faced the facts much better than I could at the time.

I have seen how the envy and jealousy of one person spread like poison to others. This is my version, the version of the people I left says something different, of course, it is just something I have to accept. I listened to this poison for far too long, I even went along with it at times, I am very ashamed of this behavior. It was normal to talk badly about other people.

BUT I have a wonderful therapist and two great friends who have always told me that I am only torturing myself, that my attempts to gain recognition will never work. My best friend from France in particular told me early on that there are many people around me who are just as dissatisfied, many who are at odds with themselves. I could see it, but I couldn't change it, because if the others are always busy with other things and people, if some of the events from the past that have had a huge impact on me are not dealt with, then it won't work. This is a realization that I had to come to myself, and it didn't come overnight, but gradually.

So I drew a line under it on April 2, 2020. It wasn't easy, I had moments when I doubted, when I only saw the positive things that people gave me. But there was also the other side that must not be forgotten.

That brings me to the second picture. It was a sticker in the van that we bought second-hand from someone who, at least in the minds of the people I then separated from, shouldn't be trusted. The statement of the people I no longer see about the ABT tuning, which I knew nothing about until then, was: "Typical, everyone else has to pay a lot for it, but Sonja gets it for free in her new car!" The envy is clearly audible, because goals that I somehow achieved, which others would also have liked to have, were always denigrated if possible. When I got a job promotion, which in my opinion I only got because there was no one else with the same qualifications, it was said that that was just my kind of luck that others didn't have. That doesn't quite fit, but the people concerned will never see that.

This characterizes the environment in which I grew up; it was characterized by envy of the achievements or simply happiness of others, jealousy, anger, hot temper, self-doubt, self-pity, depression of many around me and many other things.

Other things were neglected. I have no real tolerance for frustration, I was never told that my happiness in life depends primarily on myself and my attitude to life, that I have to work for it. I was not taught how to deal with defeat or other things, because then it was always someone else's fault. I gave up on many things and hobbies too quickly, because when it came to knitting, for example, no one recognized that I had any talent, but as soon as I had someone who seriously showed me it, everyone around me was happy about my "great socks", which of course I knitted again and again for everyone involved in the hamster wheel of recognition.

I have now realized that I am responsible for myself and my happiness. I meditate daily, I do therapy, I practice yoga so that I can concentrate more on myself and my desires, so that I can find peace within myself, which is what yoga aims to do. It may sound selfish, but I have tried long enough to please everyone and make everyone happy.